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Finnish games developer Antti Kallioinen has passed away.
The art lead at Resogun and Dead Nation outlet Housemarque was finishing up work on upcoming shooter Alienation when he died on February 24th, the studio said. He was 42.
Kallioinen had been a member of the Finnish development community for more than two decades, starting out at Terramarque as a background graphics artist before moving to the UK to work at Scavenger and later relocating to Australia to co-found Space Haste creator Church of Electronic Entertainment.
Returning to Europe, he went on to co-found a further two studios: the Holland-based MMO developer Dreams Interactive and Chat Republic, based back in Finland.
Having worked at Housemarque in the mid-1990s, Kallioinen returned to the studio in 2012, leading the art team on Alienation and offering his experience from the online games sector.
“Ever since being a teenager, Antti had been curious of new, upcoming things,” Housemarque recalled. “He joined an AD&D roleplaying group in the late ’80s in his hometown Joensuu, and got fascinated by home computers, which lead him to study how to use Deluxe Paint. Eventually, he started his career as one of the first Finnish professional game graphics artists.
“He also was an early MMORPG game developer in the pre-WoW era and went on to explore browser and social gaming frontiers well before Facebook games became popular.
“Let the good memories of Antti live on.”
Kallioinen is survived by his partner and family.
